Many of the world’s economies are struggling to continue growth, and some have slipped into recession. In particular, the huge and famously fast-growing Chinese economy looks wobbly, and it has a lot of debt. Could a recession in China cause another debt meltdown like 2008?

“You shouldn’t think, ‘Oh my God, this is all going to collapse and China is going to default on itself,'” says Derek Scissors, a China expert at the American Enterprise Institute. “Instead, you should think, ‘Oh my God, what a colossalÂ waste of money.'”